5/5/2008
John Duerden, Asia Editor, goal.com

There’s nothing like Iranian football. Just when you think things are about to settle down, they spring back into action and everything starts again. The title-race looked dead and buried a month ago but now the fight between Sepahan, Persepolis and, we shouldn't forget, Saba, is dominating the headlines once again in Tehran’s dozen-plus sports papers.

It is not only match reports that are keeping the column inches ticking over. Tales of points deductions, appeals and possible future punishments are also being breathlessly told.

Wouldn’t it be great if the race could be decided on the pitch? Wouldn’t it be great if the record of the 2007-08 season wasn’t eternally blemished by asterisks explaining why both Sepahan and Persepolis were docked three and six points respectively? Reports of Sepahan being threatened with a further three-point ban would mean that everything was even but it is not the way to settle championships. Unfortunately with FIFA and the Iranian Football Federation (IFF) in control, we can expect the worst.

In the last month, there has been enough to talk about on the pitch. Long-time league leaders Persepolis had been hit by a six-point deduction by FIFA for failure to pay past players not long before they had a mini-slump in form. Afshin Ghotbi’s men were suddenly seven points behind new leaders Sepahan with games, and perhaps the coach’s time at the helm, running out.

Even during the months spent at the top of the table, some sections of the tough-to-please Tehran media and, if some reports are to be believed, factions inside the club itself, didn’t make life easy for Ghotbi as he returned to his homeland after 30 years. So it was hardly a surprise that when results worsened then people like Alireza Nikbakht-Vahedi, an experienced player with a mouth as big as his talent, started criticizing Ghotbi in public.

It looked like a season that had once promised so much was going to end in disaster. A 2-0 loss at Zob Ahan was bad enough but then came a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Esteghlal Ahvaz in April. It was mooted that a loss in the next game against Malavan would spell the end for Ghotbi.

Persepolis won 2-0 and have since collected seven points from the following nine available. Now the gap behind Sepahan that looked almost unbridgeable less than a month ago is suddenly back down to two.

While Persepolis’s European lawyers are busy working towards an appeal against the six-point deduction, matters could yet be decided in the club’s favour on the pitch. Little wonder then that Sepahan’s assistant coach Karim Ghanbari said last week that the Isfahan club was planning to concentrate on the Iranian league rather than the Asian Champions version.

Head coach Jorvan Vieira knows that he has a fight on his hands if he is to follow up his Iraqi Asian Cup success of 2007 with a domestic prize in Iran. That challenge looks like going down to the wire. Sepahan may have the two point advantage but thoughts of the final game of the season will never stray too far from the minds of the 2007 continental runners-up.

That is the small matter of a game with Persepolis at the famed Azadi Stadium, one which will be full to bursting with supporters of the Reds. It is a mouth-watering prospect.

It may not happen however. Persepolis have two tough tests before the final day with games against third-placed Saba, still in the title race themselves, as well as a match against a tricky Bargh team.

But for fans of the Tehran giants, it is just a relief to be able to focus on events on the pitch rather than the Shakespearian intrigue that sometimes goes on behind the scenes at the storied old club.

There could soon be enough drama to satisfy everybody and whatever happens, we can hope that the team which lifts the trophy on May 17, is the one that has done the most on the pitch over 34 games.